I am in the closing phases of finishing a home for my nephew, it's 2,485 sq. ft. of heated/cooled space. we are coming in on a budget of no more than $120,000.00.

As of this time, (brick is being laid and drywall is going up, all fixtures and cabinetry is purchased we are looking at around $98,000.00 to complete.

The home is very nice and spacious for a 3 bedroom 2 bath split plan. with bonus upstairs.

We did not compromise on roofing or framing or anything else for that matter, I acted as the General Contractor(which is a pain in the ass, but if you know what you are doing , will pay off in the end )

I did the electrical and will install allt he fixtures for punch out, floor covering is to be done by family members at no labor cost nad the counter tops are going to be solid granite, donated by a supplier I do a lot of business with.

I knwo this is extreme, but if you can contract out a home yourself, you can save a lot of money on the bottom line.

Thanks for the heads up. We plan on doing everything ourselves also. We only need about 1200 sq ft or even less. We live in 780 sq ft right now. Old mobile home in sad shape, so we want to build. Some thing with a lot better layout, a little bigger and like I said, inexpensive. The more input I can get from all of you, the better I will feel before we hopefully start building in the spring. Thanks again!

The reason I suggest modular is that many of the systems are done for you and some companies provide assistnace with the others. For someone not in the trades or experienced as their own general contractor, this is a boon because you can quickly become overcome by details of multiple trades and skills and find your self in over your heads.

Also, banks are less than willing to lend to a DIY on first house. They get stuck with an unfinished unsaleable house too often that way. But some modular companies help hook you up with bank lending and construction loans. You take care of the overal organization and stitching things together and can have a liveable home in a couple months time and enough equity in the process to put you over the top on the balance sheets.

Another thing to consider, a bank is more willing to lend on a slightly larger house. From their standpoint, if you fault out on the place and they end up reposessing it, they want a marketable collatteral they can move quickly and not one that the majority of the market will see as too small.